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From Gaza to Geneva:
The Peace Initiative of Israelis and Palestinians
[DEUTSCH]
 In
the summer of 2005, Israelis evacuated the Gaza Strip and four settlements
in the northern parts of the West Bank. This recent development provides new
options for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The
status that the Israeli policy wanted to create after 1967 in both
territories is no longer irreversible.
Reiner Bernstein is engaged in past and present Middle East affairs,
especially in the relations between Israel and the Palestinians. His main
interest is the evaluation of Israeli-Jewish and Arab-Islamic narratives on
political decisions in both societies. In his new book he defends the notion
that the hundred-year-old conflict is based on an absolute struggle about
history, geography, and religious symbols. Social justice and willingness to
work for political peace with the neighbouring people have only recently
become understood as more worthy than messianic passions.
At the beginning of the book, the author analyses the failures of the Oslo
agreements of 1993/95 and the collapse of the Camp David summit talks in
July 2000. Afterwards he discusses the inherent indecisiveness of the “Road
Map.” Against this backdrop he addresses in detail the Geneva peace
initiative that Israelis und Palestinians presented to the international
public in December 2003 under the leadership of Yossi Beilin und Yasser Abed
Rabbo. It attracted much international attention all around the world,
because this was the first time that members of parliament and of security
services, scholars, business people and authors from both sides had drafted
a comprehensive peace plan. The Geneva peace intitiative refrains from
lengthy interpretations and compromises. Instead it proffers specific
regulations for the central problems of the conflict: the two-states
solution alongside the “Green Line” of 1967, the removal of the Jewish
settlements, the establishment of Jerusalem as capital of both states, the
Palestinian refugee problem as well as answers to bilateral security
questions.
Despite initial opposition to it, the Geneva Initiative is on its way to
being largely accepted by the Israeli and the Palestinian societies as a
starting-point for official negotiations to come. Both peoples are beginning
to understand that further interim agreements are only useful if carried out
on the level of national equality.
Today the Israeli government still seems to insist on the viewpoint of “Gaza
first – Gaza last.” Indeed, when negotiations about political and
territorial follow-ups start in autumn of 2005, the relevance of the Jewish
religious narrative concerning “Judea and Samaria” as the cradle of Jewish
history and of “Palestine” as part of the Islamic endowment will appear on
the agenda.
The drafters of the Geneva Initiative must therefore see to it that new
democratic majorities prevail in both societies. Only then can their
particular ideas for conflict resolution gain outstanding significance for
the political future.
 The
book is rounded off by the text of the Geneva Initiative, the names of all
Israeli and Palestinian partners, a bibliography and a glossary. The
foreword was written by the chairman of the “Heinrich Böll Stiftung”, Ralf
Fücks, and epilogues by Yasser Abed Rabbo and Yossi Beilin.
Reiner Bernstein ist Historiker und verantwortet die
Homepage
www.genfer-initiative.de.
hagalil.com / 01-12-05 |
